USJ 6 residents nab and hand over thieving delinquents to cops

A resident cleaning up broken glass inside the car that was broken into the night before.

UNABLE to tolerate the unruly behaviour of the neighbourhood’s juvenile delinquents any longer, the USJ 6 Rukun Tetangga (USJ 6 RT) handed the group over to the police.

USJ 6 RT chairman Major Ismail Jr Feisol said it was the last straw for them after they experienced two car break-ins this month.

While there were no witnesses, Ismail said the juveniles came under suspicion because of the nature of the crime where only petty things such as small change and Touch ‘n Go cards were stolen while the more valuable car radios were left intact.

“These are not professional thieves, they are just opportunists,” said Ismail.

Ismail says the culprits are from poorer families

In addition, the group of about six to eight boys in their early teens were known to the RT, having been previously caught red-handed stealing badminton racquets at the park, vandalising cars and stealing bicycles from house compounds.

Ismail, who owns a restaurant in Summit USJ shopping mall, had also regularly seen the group of boys loitering at the mall during school hours.

Both the RT and police have reprimanded the boys in the past for their unruly acts but the group did not seem to learn their lesson.

“Initially, we did not want to pursue this, but it seems like they are getting from bad to worse. If they are doing this at the age of 13 to 14, can you imagine what will happen when they are 18?”

Ismail said crime in the area dropped tremendously since the formation of the RT four years ago and its greater cooperation with police.

However, he is frustrated that the whole community has yet to get a gated-and-guarded system set up and believes that having perimeter fencing could further reduce incidences of snatch thefts and car battery thefts.

“There are not enough police personnel to be everywhere at once. We need the cooperation of the residents to report things to the police,” he said.

But on the issue of the juvenile delinquents in the area, who come from poorer families, Ismail sees it as a side-effect of greater socioeconomic problems in Malaysia.

“These problems cannot be solved by the police alone, but with the cooperation of the community and other government agencies such as the Welfare Department and the National Anti-Drugs Agency,” he added.